ARTIST BIO:
Davon McMillian (b. 1990, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is a multidisciplinary visual artist based in Los Angeles, California. His practice centers on painting and drawing, with a focus on portraiture and figuration as a way to explore identity, memory, displacement, and the unconscious mind. He received his BA in Studio Arts from California State University, Chico in 2020, following a year studying language and culture in Japan.
Before transitioning fully into his practice, McMillian spent over a decade (2014–2024) working as a commercial designer in retail and fashion, an experience that sharpened his eye for design, materiality, and cultural trends.
ARTIST STATEMENT (c. 2025):
I work primarily in acrylic, charcoal, pencil, graphite, paper, and screenprint. These are materials that were accessible to me growing up and still carry that sense of urgency and economy. My practice centers around themes of masculinity, identity, isolation, and memory. I’m often trying to understand who we are when no one is watching, how experience forms character, and how trauma reshapes the mind and spirit. I approach these ideas through the lens of my own life—as a Black American man, a first-gen artist/student, and someone shaped by both invisibility and expectation. My work is driven by the desire to unearth—not just to represent a figure, but to reveal what’s underneath it.